For them, the ruling was another attack on traditional marriage. But its blow was deeper than others for how it sought to nullify the place of religion in providing a basis for countering the effort to legalize gay marriage.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker was appealed by the Alliance Defense Fund and is expected to make it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Talk to religious groups who favor or oppose gay marriage and they are going to cite the Bible and religious logic to support their positions.

But there’s much disagreement these days over whether and how religion should reflect itself in laws and policies.

Here’s a San Francisco Chronicle story on the political potential for the ruling to spark more intense partisan efforts, including among Christian conservatives.

The rules for religious expression may be at stake in the outcome of this case.

The RNS story quotes Howard Friedman, an emeritus law professor at Ohio’s University of Toledo, who has the popular blog “Religion Clause“:

The judge is “basically saying that a private moral view isn’t a rational basis for legislation. Case law goes both ways on that. There are certainly some cases that say a merely moral view isn’t enough to support legislation; on the other hand, there are some cases that talk about laws being a moral view on society”